You'll Never Win This Game

The transitive property is ingrained in our thinking. It gives our brains a simple, straightforward way to process the world -- especially with numbers. If one thing is better or more valuable than another, and that second thing is better than a third, you KNOW that the first one is better than the third.

But it doesn’t always work that way. And if you fail to recognize when real life violates the pattern of transitivity, you’re going to run head first into a veridical paradox.

Efron’s non-transitive dice demonstrate that hard and fast rules about value don’t always exist. By toying with relative probabilities, Efron discovered that a die’s superiority or weakness can be relative -- and as the dice values get more complex, it becomes nearly impossible to reason out which die is stronger against the others.

In math, our first impressions are often deceptive. Occasionally they’re just plain wrong. And sometimes a game is designed to deceive you into believing you’re in a position of strength when there’s no way to win. That’s the deception paradox.

Oh -- and if someone wants to play a game with you and they let you go first… run.

*** LINKS ***

Vsauce2:

Hosted and Produced by Kevin Lieber

Research and Writing by Matthew Tabor

Editing by John Swan

Huge Thanks To Paula Lieber

#education #vsauce #maths

[Vsauce]

Rock/paper/scissors is mathematically trivial; its intransitivity is obvious and needs no explanation. Efron's Dice have unequal features with varying average rolls and a transitive/higher number wins aspect to the game. Also, a die's advantage as we add more dice approaches a limit of 3/4, which is pretty interesting. R/P/S has none of this complexity.

[Azurade]

It’s not choosing the meta, it’s choosing counterpicks

[scottishrob]

The line "I'm going to crush you, with my D." crashed my YouTube app. I hope you're happy Kevin.

[SavageGreywolf]

alt title: Kevin spends 9 minutes explaining how he's going to devastate your A with his D.

[BluecoreG]

So what happens when you roll all 4 dice in a 4 play free for all? Over time, which one wins?

[mosder]

"Let's play rock paper scissors, but you get the advantage of picking first and letting me know what you picked."

[dainmeister]

"IT MAKES NO SENSE"

People picking their starter Pokemon: "tell me about it"

[CowCommando]

VSauce: "It makes no sense."
Me: "You've clearly never played a video game with a weapon triangle."

[Zetact_]

Math nerd: "Let's play a game, you move first."
You should know that means there's a twist.

[TheWeirdoClub]

The most confusing part of this video is you trying to convince us that this is somehow unintuitive.

[mofynn]

I feel like most people don't assume transitivity.

And I don't think the non transitivity is that mind boggling since because a "worse dice" can win small while loosing big and it doesn't make a diffence.

[DM-pvrw]

"I'm going to give you a game-changing hint." *lies*

[Isabela-ubfx]

Imagine playing rock paper scissors but one player chooses first. Yes, they'll always lose

[charlieb]

You’re talking (largely) to a generation that grew up on Pokémon. This is more intuitive for people than you may think lol

[gamerdomain]

"How can the best one lose to the worst one?"
"It makes NO sense!"
rock, paper, scissors, an incredibly simple game that pretty much anyone can grasp: Am I a joke to you?

[picklenik]

I feel like as someone who has played hundreds of hours of Pokémon in my life, this concept is familiar enough to something I’ve experienced for so long that it makes pretty decent sense.

While sure Pokémon has been called a traditional “rock paper scissors” for decades, like this game it’s far more complicated. There are 19 types, all weaving in chains and webs of one beats the other beats the other, with some traditional RPS triangles, as well as complex chains where fire beats grass beats water which beats both rock and ground and is resisted by steel, and then that ground is also good against the rock as well, steel and fire which is against fire. It’s hit many complex layers and branches that dictate where something lands on a winning matchup.
Ice for example is one of the worst defensive types with 4 weaknesses, but offensively it crushes dragon, grass, ground, bug and flying.

[OsemBadiman]

"I'm choosing D to go against your A"

Go on.

[melody]

"because I'm nice I'm gonna let you pick first"
Yeah we know your tricks next time you play a game YOURE choosing first Kevin...

[RaNdmGaMeRzZ]

The first batch of numbers was so incredible easy to work out, it makes perfect logical sense. Should have started with the second set of numbers to make it at least somewhat difficult to work out.

[LoLeanderx]

Lmao this is exactly like rock paper scissors and Kevin's like "I'm so nice that I'm going to let you make your move first". 🤣